The Old South Haven Presbyterian Church cemetery is located south of Montauk Highway about 1000 feet west of where the highway crosses the Carman's River. This was the original location of several early church meeting houses erected after the establishment of the parish about 1740. The last church structure, erected in 1828, was located adjacent and immediately north of the cemetery.

In 1960, the 1828 church structure itself was moved about 3 miles southwest to the Hamlet of Brookhaven. The original site in South Haven is marked with a New York State historical marker.

Minimal maintenance of the cemetery is provided by the Town of Brookhaven and community members. While portions of the cemetery plot have become overgrown, the graveyard is in generally fair-good condition. While most of the stones identified in the 1925 and 1938 surveys (below) were found, some of the present-day stones appear to have been vandalized, or have significantly deteriorated and become unreadable. There are at least four field stones placed in the cemetery suggesting grave sites of now unidentifiable persons.

Among those buried in the cemetery is Priest David Rose, minister of the congregation throughout the tumultuous Revolutionary War period. The church congregation was, for the most part, strong patriots, with Priest Rose their leader. A member of the congregation, William Floyd, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another prominent member was General Nathanial Woodhull, who died of wounds inflicted by the British in Jamaica, Queens during the Battle of Long Island.

A record of the community members who contributed to Rev. Rose's gravestone survives (see transcript), and includes William Floyd.

Surveys. Two separate surveys of the cemetery were found in the records of the Church -- one a three page handwritten transcription of the stones dated 1925 which contains 21 entries, the other a five page typewritten report, dated July, 1938, by Elizabeth Janet MacCormick which contains 24 entries (not counting footstones). Also available for review and comparison was the Town of Brookhaven Historian's Cemetery List (Osborne Shaw, c. 1939, computer listing dated 1982) which contains 25 entries, some being duplicates. The minutes of the church Session from the organization of the Church in the early 18th century to 1900 were destroyed in a house fire in the early 1900's. A Trustees record book recording their business from 1802 to 1900, and a digest of Session minutes fortuitously prepared by the then Clerk in 1903 prior to the fire have survived. Neither set of records included burials in the cemetery. The Table of Inscriptions is based on the 1925 stone readings.

The earliest identified interment in the cemetery was that of Sarah (Tinker) Hudson in 1746.

This cemetery is #4 on the Town of Brookhaven Historian's Cemetery Listing and has Brookhaven/South Haven Historic Site Ref. ID SH03. Its Suffolk County Tax Map Identification is 0200-849.00-03.00-005.000. Its approximate GPS location is N40º 48.065' W72º 53.168'.

Plot Plan. Also in the church's possession is a survey map (undated) which shows the exact dimensions of the irregularly shaped site, and a numbered plot map (September 1993) by Faith McCutcheon and Martin Van Lith which is keyed to the stone positions. I updated their map in April 2005 to correct for stones not visible in 1993 but since uncovered. The numbers above each inscription in the table below are keyed to this plot plan -- clicking on the number in the plot plan will take you directly to the headstone image.